


Methodology

by Cheloya



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Old, imported. Dee's help is not really helpful.





	Methodology

Vesca groaned, and cracked his neck. He was pretty sure they'd been studying for a week solid, and as much as he wanted to pass this exam, he'd never wanted to sleep as much as he did right now, either. He was having serious trouble keeping his eyes open, and it didn't feel like any amount of coffee was going to save him, but it didn't stop him from trying.

"I'm making coffee. You want?"

Dee barely glanced up from his notes. "Tea would be lovely," he suggested, not a trace of sleep in his voice. "And a biscuit." Vesca rolled his eyes.

"You ate the last one hours ago. Do you pay any attention to what you learn in nutrition?" He got down some cinnamon and sugar to put on toast, though, anyway. Dee had not moved by the time he returned to the table, and he barely looked up to thank Vesca for the tea. One elegant hand propped up a text book against a smaller stack of papers before curling around the cup and lifting it to his lips.

"Mmm. Thankyou, Mr University Student."

"Welcome." Vesca downed his coffee, heavily sugared in defiance of his words to Dee, and sighed. "I don't think this stuff is having any effect any more," he admitted quietly. "Too much in one day."

"Mmm," Dee said again, absently. "You won't sleep. You don't usually drink it, do you?" It wasn't really a question.

"Nah. Hate the stuff." Vesca was rueful, running a hand through his (drooping) blond spikes. He stared at his textbook, started at his notebook, drew half a graph (labelling the axes the wrong way 'round in the process) and dropped his pencil in disgust. "I'm dead, Dee. I can't stay awake any more."

Dee looked up at last, lips curving deviously. "Oh?" Underneath the coffee table, Vesca felt a bare foot sliding up his thigh. He sat bolt upright with the touch, so much more intimate than a kiss, choking and turning an interesting shade of red.

"The fuck are you--"

Dee chuckled, kneaded Vesca's leg for another moment with his toes, and then withdrew. "Awake now?" he purred, and Vesca groaned.

"Awake enough to lean across and _kill you_ , you idiot," he grumped. "Jesus."

"Only kill?" Dee pouted, and returned to his book, expression sobering. "You shouldn't waste that energy, Vesca." And then he was lost again in the world of bioethics and Vesca was left to stare at his textbook in half-hard confusion.

Eventually, with the silence and the deep breaths (and maybe just plain old stubbornness) Vesca managed to refocus most of his mind on the practice exam questions. He was halfway through naming proteins when he shifted his posture slightly and his foot encountered Dee's calf underneath the table.

Vesca froze. Dee didn't even look up. Which was... reassuring. Kinda. Not really daring to move his foot, now, Vesca returned his attention to the questions - as much as he could, with the warmth of a silk-covered calf resting firmly against his ankle, trembling occasionally with the force of Dee's sometimes-fervent scribbling.

Couldn't be called scribbling, really. Even though he wrote fast, Dee wrote with near-mechanical precision. Maybe it was something about learning the language new that made you write like that. Maybe his Chinese was terrible. Vesca had always thought his writing was a little girly, but that just figured, didn't it? Pretty much everything about the guy was girly, except his sense of humour - Vesca didn't even know where to start with that.

Dee's leg shifted again, sliding silk against the roughness of Vesca's jeans and then pulling back 'til they weren't _quite_ touching any more, but he could feel the warmth from the other leg emanating across the millimetres from his toes to just past his knee. Bastard, Vesca thought, grip making his pen creak. He was doing this on _purpose_ , he was sure of it - but a surreptitious glance (read: glare) across the table yielded only Dee's expression of mild annoyance as he was forced to use a calculator for one of the questions. Had it just been a coincidental motion?

Deciding to test a hypothesis was barely a conscious decision any more. He waited a while - ten, fifteen minutes, and he had too keep looking at his watch because the seconds were starting to stretch for him - and then he curled and uncurled his toes a few times, barely brushing the fabric just inside Dee's knee. He frowned a bit as he did it, gnawed a little on the tip of his biro so Dee'd think he was having trouble with something. And then, after a few more 'problem questions', he just kept flexing his toes, pseudo-absently. Dee knew he jiggled his feet when he was restless; it was one of those things Dee tended to notice, and snap at.

And yet, within a few minutes of that softer, gentler motion, one of Dee's hands went fluttering to his collar with a frown. He tugged his hair down over one shoulder, long fingers resting against his neck. And Vesca stared at his book without seeing the words and wondered how to get out of this one without looking like an idiot or resorting to even more coffee. He was still wondering this, still carefully flexing his toes, when Dee's hand started slipping free the toggles at the neck of his gown.

He looked up, then, and blinked, partially at Dee's halted motion, partially at the fact that - when he looked closely - Vesca could see that Dee's face was maybe a little pinker than before, a little more strained. Shit.

Part of him had already kicked free of the coffee table and everything that lay beneath it, and part of him wanted to know - just how far could he take this teasing before Dee turned it around and made him feel two inches tall? (And could he, any more? There was something heady about causing a change like that in Dee, Dee who was always so calm and so cool with everyone.)

"Never thought I'd see the day you submitted to the weather," he grinned inanely, glad he was already wearing a singlet, glad his jeans were thin and old and holey, glad every window in this miserable little apartment was already wide open. Dee's frown deepened, a tiny pucker between his brows.

"It is nearly summer, Vesca," he said, not quite indignant, but getting there. The breathiness was Vesca's imagination. Had to be. _Shit_. "Even I am not completely impervious."

"Mmm," Vesca replied, not sure what, exactly, Dee was referring to, there, and beginning to get worried about it, beginning to suspect that maybe that cup of coffee wasn't such a bad idea after all. "You want a drink?" He shifted slightly, made to get up, and nearly froze again as Dee looked at him - just looked, nothing special on his face, but Vesca still got the feeling he was tossing up between answers.

"Would you?" came the eventual response, demure and grateful as only Dee could be when he really, really wanted to. Vesca grinned, jumped to his feet again, and rolled his shoulders as though maybe the discomfort came from them instead of elsewhere.

"Wish is my command," he joked, and turned around, barely catching the not-expression on Dee's face, and trying not to care what the other answer might have been.


End file.
